News, views and commentary on Long Island, state and national politics.

U.S. Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini is due to announce that if elected he would launch an effort to kill the filibuster rule in the upper house, calling it an anti-democratic practice whichever major party is deploying it.

Incumbent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, over the weekend touted legislation that she said would raise access to lending by credit unions. She's also reporting that she raised $7.1 million since her appointment last January.

She's also reportedly responding to a potential challenge from Harold Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman, who has called himself "pro-life" but insists that he still supports abortion rights.Ford has said "party bosses" won't keep him out.

He's reportedly lived in New York for three years...Ironically, allies of Gillibrand might also find themselves homing in on his more GOP-friendly past tilts on illegal immigration, gun control and gay marriage.

So far, only labor-activist Tasini, who declared last June, bothers to put himself out there. Does Ford really join — or is he another comet? Might his entry even help the severely underfunded, long-odds Tasini by splitting the primary vote to his right and tapping into Wall Street money he won't get anyway?

On the Republican side comes a bit more '90's nostalgia: Word that Susan Molinari, the former Congresswoman from Staten Island, is considering getting back into politics with a race against Gillibrand. Over many, many years, she and her dad Guy Molinari have had their names floated for higher elected and appointed positions from vice-president to governor to New York City mayor to transportation secretary.

But all their positions of power have been entirely Staten Island-based, whether borough president or Council, Congressional, or Assembly member.